Michael Levin and Karl Friston: How Free Energy Shapes Everything

Curt Jaimungal talks with Michael Levin and Karl Friston about how the free energy principle and entropy shape self-organization and our perception of reality. They explore creativity, aging, the nature of selfhood, and the constructive role of science in biology and psychology.

- 00:00 - Introduction
- 3:43 - The Free Energy Principle Explained
- 5:41 - Creativity and Adaptive Utilization
- 11:56 - In-Painting vs. Out-Painting
- 15:33 - The Unreliable Medium of Biology
- 20:05 - Aging: Noise or Psychological?
- 25:25 - The Nature of Selfhood
- 45:10 - Distinctions in Organic and Psychological Disease
- 48:54 - Goal-Directed Systems and Aging
- 52:32 - The Dynamics of Life and Death
- 55:49 - Continuous Self in a Changing Form
- 1:01:35 - The Constructive Nature of Science
- 1:08:02 - Inferring Actions and Counterfactuals
- 1:11:40 - Closing Thoughts and Future Conversations

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RESOURCES:

- Michael's website: https://thoughtforms.life/
- Karl's publications: https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/
- Michael's previous appearance on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aLhkm6QUgA
- Karl's previous appearance on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk4NZorRjCo
- Michael on Anthrobots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG6GIzNM0aM
- Michael's paper on stress sharing as cognitive glue for collective intelligences: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X2400932X?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=911840d57c51eace
- Karl and Michael with Chris Fields on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6eJ44Jq_pw
- Karl Friston on the 'Free Energy Principle' on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v7LBABwZKA
- Michael's recent paper with Chris Fields: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064525000089?dgcid=coauthor
- Top-down models in biology (paper): https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsif.2016.0555
- Geoffrey Hinton on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_DUft-BdIE
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- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt
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Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal features long-form, technically detailed interviews with leading researchers in physics, mathematics, consciousness, and philosophy, exploring topics at the level of active research. For academics, graduate students, and anyone seeking depth beyond popular science.

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